https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLkhK2TnUMw&ab_channel=reactionflv
Yup. In my teens I wasn’t in a very healthy living space. Grandma was the mentally abusive type. Playing WoW was a nice way to distract myself from her and my own invasive thoughts.
Same goes for later in my very early 20s. I developed interstitial cystitis. Aka painful bladder syndrome. No cure. Just throwing meds at it with some diet changes ( I long for flamin hot cheetos but I’d be in absolute agony ) This is also the thing that got me to go on the forums a lot. It was nice to socialize that way thru the bad pain days.
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Thank you for sharing, hope things have gotten better!
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Mostly. The pain is gonna be with me til I’m dead in the ground. But it’s tolerable most days.
And I moved out of that hellish living arrangement around 7 years ago.
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I am sorry to hear about the pain man, but I am glad the living situation is better these days and wish you the best!
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Nope.
Same. My most recent doctor managed to get me to taper off some of the more heavy pain meds I was on. The pain is to the level of bone cancer so I was on some pretty serious pain meds like vicodin and morphine together. He got me to where I just take medicine for nerve pain. Gabapentin. Oh I was miserable during that whole process but it paid off.
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Oh. My. Gosh. Literally going through this right now; developed a UTI in July last year and since then have all the symptoms of one but with negative tests, IC would be a urologists diagnoses (haven’t gone down that route.)
So much empathy for you, this has been the hardest thing i’ve ever had to go through and I have been through A LOT so that’s saying something.
My dad was also like your grandma… are you a mirror me? lol xD
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Ah yeah at first I thought mine was just bad frequent UTIs. I started drinking cranberry juice unaware that that’s totally a trigger drink for the pain.
As for the diagnosis. I had to get conked out for mine. I was told you can be awake for it but noooooooooope wasn’t having that. They stick a camera up you so they can look in your bladder. The only crappy part was afterwards. Catheters suck man. And I had to walk around with one in me lol. Thankfully I could just ask for some medicine. They give you a shot and you’re out like a light.
It was so trippy because I remember before I was conked out for the procedure. I was being wheeled in to the room and then I ended up just having the best snooze of my life. Waking up wasn’t very fun because again. Catheters. My Mom is a nurse and while I wasn’t treated by her ( she would have thought it was too weird. She cares its just mom instincts when she has a job to do ya know? ) she did manage to get me a nice room all to myself.
I know it’s scary at first. But I believe in you.
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Do you know the root cause of your IC? Because I know it is different for everyone but for some people the root cause actually is infection, and that has the potential to be helped with long term antibiotics (which isn’t great as that has it’s own side effects, but still, long term pain isn’t great either!).
Have you heard of Prof James Malone-Lee? He very recently published a book on his life findings of research and treatments etc. He has a clinic in London that treats patients for Chronic UTI. (What he believes is one root cause of IC). Dr Stewart Bundrick in LA USA also believes this and treats IC patients for this! Either way I recommend googling and researching them 
I mean yeah. A few times - retail and recently classic have provided communities in which I see people I’ve built relationships with irl. I’ll queue up a game of AV and run* into a priest/whatever I played with in say 2014. Always, always makes my day seeing old friends in game.
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I was one of the folks where it just suddenly showed up. I was around 20ish. I’m 31 now.
Still sucks when I had to get urologist appointments because IC and other bladder issues are more common among the elderly. So I stuck out like a sore thumb and it was just always awkward.
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Yeah all the time it helps with my major depression.
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It’s gotten me through Tourghast. After the 10th time, it’s pretty tough to bear it any more
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WoW got me through some very long stays in hospital and even longer periods at home recovering afterwards. In some ways i found occupying my mind with gaming to be better than painkillers.
Yeh like me, my whole life my bladder was totally 100% fine, in fact I was like a camel, I could drink lots and go ages and ages without needing to use the bathroom, then out of no where I get a UTI at 32 (this first one was confirmed Ecoli - went to hosp in agony) and since then have never been the same.
I don’t believe all cases of IC are infection, but I do believe some are as do those Drs. Simply not enough research has been done for patients with IC. “Deal with it for life” isn’t really acceptable.
Also I assume (hit me if I am wrong here) you are male? That makes it even worse and as you said “sticking out like a sore thumb” as UTIs and cUTIs and IC seem to affect females more… In saying that just because more females are affected doesn’t mean males aren’t, I’ve seen a few males in my FB support groups 
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I’m a trans guy. So I still have female biology. But I identify as male
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Shortly before WotLK I was heavy into the bottle. Once WotLK came out and for several other expansion, I was clean.
Now Shadowlands has me going back to AA. Thanks Shadowlands.
Damn our female bits making us more prone to this sort of thing 
Praying we get a cure soon despite current medicine saying there is none. Got to hold out hope I guess 
Also if you are ever feeling down etc and need to chat, hit me up in game. This condition can feel so isolating at times. Sending healing vibes your way
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Mmos have in general. I generally dislike people and avoid them. Having said that, social interaction is still a good thing and necessary. I use mmos a lot for that. When people start to annoy me, I simply log off.
Mmos let me keep people at a distance while still interacting with them. It has worked pretty well for me for the last 20 years.